Janet The girls were all born in four minutes. We've since heard a tape of the birth, and you can hear a doctor saying, 'Baby girl
number one. Baby girl number two. Baby girl number three. Number four. Oh my God, it's another girl.' Right up until they got to
six. They all went into the special-care baby unit, and I went home to recuperate and buy all the equipment we needed. I hadn't
even wanted anyone to knit cardigans because I was afraid of tempting fate, but I found out that my mum had been knitting all
along and had a big pile of cardigans by the time the girls were born.

We had professional help with the babies at the beginning. Graham and I moved into the small bedroom, and there were six cots
lined up against the wall in the larger one. We used to go out with the girls as much as we could in the first year. We had three
double buggies and we went for lots of walks. We've always had a very positive attitude and just took it one day at a time. It's not
a problem as long as you have a routine. You have to take a bag with food and nappies even if you have one child, so you just
take enough for six. Graham and I kept our identities and always made time for ourselves. I went to aerobics and Graham carried
on playing five-a-side football.

When the girls began to crawl, they were all over the place. Now when I see friends with little ones, I can't believe we had six at
once. It was like having our own nursery. Their different personalities became very apparent early on, and they still are today.

Even at the age of two, Hannah was very tidy and Kate worried about the others - she's still a bit of a worrier. Jenny was the
tallest, so she was the leader because she was the first one who could reach doorhandles.

Now I work for the special-care baby unit at Liverpool Women's Hospital. I've known the unit since the girls were born. Originally I
took the job only for a short time to get back into work. Now I can't leave. Once your babies have been in special care, you will
always have a connection with the unit.

Graham It was a big deal for everyone. Wherever we went, people would stop us to ask how the girls were doing. Everyone
seemed to know who we were - we met so many lovely people.

Having sextuplets had other advantages, too. One day Janet locked the keys in the car along with all the bottles and nappies. We
panicked and the girls started to scream for their food. I called the police and Janet called the AA. Two policeman and a man from
the AA arrived and they managed to open the car and we got the food out. The girls were still screaming, so Janet gave a bottle
to each of the two coppers and one to the AA man. We all sat in the house feeding a baby each. I wish I'd had a camera.

The girls' first day at school felt strange. We had them at home for four years and suddenly they were gone. It was the first time
we saw them dressed identically - we had never done that before. There were lots of photographers there, which made us feel
bad for all the other kids who were having their first day.

We were careful about overexposing the girls, but otherwise we would never have had the holidays we did. We went to Tokyo
when they were little and to New York to do a TV show when they were a bit older. We appeared on a chat show in Ireland when
the girls were going through a Boyzone phase. The organisers hadn't told us that Ronan Keating was on the show, which was a
wonderful surprise.

When they got to be teenagers, there was always something going on and, of course, they played six different kinds of music at
once. They didn't bring many boyfriends back to the house until a year or so ago. It would take a brave lad to come back with one
of the girls, to be looked up and down by the other five. Now there are a lot of kids passing through our house, especially at
weekends - they all have loads of friends.

They all still live at home, although Jenny and Lucy are away for the summer working as travel reps. Ruth's finishing her nursery
nurse course and will soon be looking for a job. She said recently, though, 'I don't want to work with children any more. It's too
much like hard work.' I said, 'Tell me about it!' Sarah's working in insurance and Hannah and Kate have just finished their
A-levels. They've both applied for universities in Liverpool so it's going to be a full house for a while yet.

I've started doing after-dinner speaking. It started with a few stories about bringing up the girls, but now it's almost full-time.
People seem to like it - I think they can relate to it, even if they have fewer children. Some of the girls said a couple of years ago
that when they got to 18 they might not do any more interviews; they wanted to do their own thing. So it might just be the Janet
and Graham show from now on.

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About this article

What happened next?

This article appeared in the Observer
on Saturday 17 August 2002.
It was published on
the Guardian website
at 18.04 EDT on Sunday 18 August 2002.
It was first published at 18.04 EDT on Saturday 17 August 2002.